Events, Books and Authors

We will be having a My Weird School party here in the ballroom above the library this Saturday 9/29/12 at 11:00 a.m. for kids in grades 2-3 (others are welcome, but kids in grades 2-3 will have the most fun). At the party, kids will juggle scarves for Fizz Ed, take the School Nurse Challenge (balance a yardstick on your nose), do one of Ms. Hannah's art projects, and leave spelling words on a board for Miss Daisy to learn. Kids will also have snacks and get a chance to win My Weird School books. Please sign up if you are interested.

We recently got a new picture book called My Brave Year of Firsts, another title by Jamie Lee Curtis who came out with hits such as It's Hard to Be Five and Today I Feel Silly. My Brave Year of Firsts is fun and exuberant and made me laugh out loud on the first page. Laura Cornell's illustrations are full of energy and complement the rhyming text perfectly. Both kids and their parents will enjoy it.

 On Saturday, Oct. 6 there is a Community Day Celebration that makes up part of the Youth Literature Festival centered in Champaign. The website, with more details including directions to the IHotel where it is located, can be seen here. The Community Day is a chance for the public to meet lots of amazing children's authors including some of my favorites like Nic Bishop and Joseph Bruchac. The full list of authors is here.
I'm really excited because I like meeting authors and getting books signed. I hope I'll see some of you there!

New & Notable in the Teen Section

I've read a couple of new books from the Teen section recently that I've been raving about to the Teen Book Club members. The first one is Every Day by David Levithan. Every Day is about a being called A who wakes up every day in a different person's body. A has no control over what person's life he will be living next, and A just drifts from day to day until... A falls in love with a girl named Rhiannon. As A's feelings for Rhiannon deepen and A has to go to greater and greater lengths to see her every day, things get more and more complicated. You'll have to read the book to find out how it all gets resolved. Most teens who like romance (especially paranormal romance) stories will like this.

I also just read Gordon Korman's newest book Ungifted. It's about an eighth grade boy named Donovan who accidentally ends up in The Academy, a school for exceptional and gifted children. Donovan wants to stay at the Academy for as long as possible (the reason becomes clear in the hilarious first chapter of the book) but how long will the Academy's teaching staff wait for Donovan to show his "exceptional" qualities? Fans of Korman's amazing No More Dead Dogs will absolutely love this, as well as any middle school kid who likes realistic fiction.

New Books I Like

This month is an awesome month for new books, as I said a couple of weeks ago, and I've been finding some unexpected gems here at the library! One of my new favorites is The Baby That Roared by Simon Puttock. It's best for kids in kindergarten or first grade, because the "baby" in the book is actually a sneaky monster in disguise. This will be obvious to older kids who are watching the illustrations carefully, but younger preschoolers won't get the joke and might be a little frightened. I thought the whole thing was very amusing, though, in the same way that Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs by Mo Willems and I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen were.

I've also been trying to revitalize the board book collection and we've added It's Pumpkin Day, Mouse! by Laura Numeroff (who also wrote the famous If You Give a Mouse a Cookie and sequels). It's Pumpkin Day, Mouse! is a cute board book that shows Mouse painting pumpkins with different kinds of faces: happy, sad, excited, etc. This book is good for toddlers who are ready for & can recognize abstract representations of facial expressions. We've added lots of other board books too, including several featuring popular Pixar characters and "Touch & Feel" types with wild animals, Curious George, etc.


What picture books have you read recently? Anything good?

Fall Programs

I'm really looking forward to the big Saturday programs at the library this fall! Here's what we have coming up:

Saturday, Sept. 29: My Weird School Party at 11 a.m. Join us for a party based on Dan Gutman’s popular chapter book series! At the party, kids will  have Ms. Hannah’s art class, take the School Nurse challenge (balance a yardstick on your nose), do scarf juggling for Fizz Ed, and leave spelling words on a board for Miss Daisy to learn. Snacks will be served and kids will get a chance to win My Weird School books. Please register by Sept. 27 if interested.

Saturday, Oct. 27: Scooby Doo Mystery Party at 11 a.m. Join us for a spooky good time and to solve the mystery of who stole all the Scooby Snacks! Kids will follow clues through the library to find the culprit, and will also make Mystery Machines from shoeboxes. Snacks will be served and kids will get a chance to win Scooby Doo books. Please register by Oct. 25 if interested.